The reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997 emphasized the use of positive behavioral interventions, supports, and services for students with disabilities who display challenging behaviors. Unfortunately, most teachers and schools still lack systems for identification, adoption, and sustained use of these…

The article reviews efforts to set child abuse prevention goals in the U.S., noting research on program effectiveness and the role of maltreatment in child mortality. Alternative models for assessing the impact of prevention are described and the need to clarify and specify goals in prevention is stressed. (CL)

Discusses the findings of the Westinghouse Report and suggests they be considered a limited and partial description of the effects of using Head Start to educate children. (DR)

Despite a decade-long decline in substance use among adolescents, research tells that about 80 percent of teens have begun to drink alcohol and 50 percent have used an illegal drug by their senior year in high school. Substance use among teens is related to poorer outcomes for adolescents and youth (e.g., unintentional injuries, homicides and…

High schools have recently become a popular source of mentors for school-based mentoring (SBM) programs. The high school Bigs program of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, for example, currently involves close to 50,000 high-school-aged mentors across the country. While the use of these young mentors has several potential advantages, their age…

A quasi-experimental pre- and post-test design was used to evaluate the Students' Creative Response to Conflict (SCRC) program, which is based on the principles of conflict resolution education and social-emotional learning. It is predicted that SCRC will influence students to reduce their approval of aggression and associated problem behaviors…

This report presents findings from a rigorous evaluation of the Life Skills Training Program (LST) in Los Angeles County. LST provides 30 hours of life skills training over five weeks to foster youths ages 16 and older. The classes are held on community college campuses throughout Los Angeles County. The program is staffed by workers tasked with…

This "Research Update" explores two major themes: (1) Using evaluation to shape program improvement and planning; and (2) Out-of-school time benefits to older youth and their families. Themes were culled from 13 research and evaluation reports added to the Out-of-School Time (OST) Program Research and Evaluation Bibliography in September 2008.…

Based on literature and research on discussion and on educational techniques to improve discussion moderators behaviors, a training program was developed for pre- and in-service teacher educators, business and industry executives and university professors (23 to 28 hours, three and a half days). This program was tested for its effectiveness with…

Six years of survey data were analyzed to assess, among other things, the degree to which an AACSB accredited graduate business program successfully developed student skills in a variety of areas deemed important for career success. The study illustrates a methodology institutions can use to respond to increasing demands for program evaluation and…

A dramatic shift in research priorities has recently produced a large number of ambitious randomized trials in K-12 education. In most cases, the aim is to improve student academic learning by improving classroom instruction. Embedded in these studies are theories about how the quality of classroom must improve if these interventions are to…

This article examines theoretical and empirical issues related to the statistical power of impact estimates for experimental evaluations of education programs. The author considers designs where random assignment is conducted at the school, classroom, or student level, and employs a unified analytic framework using statistical methods from the…

Children with early-starting conduct problems have a very poor prognosis and exact a high cost to society. The Fast Track project is a multisite, collaborative research project investigating the efficacy of a comprehensive, long-term, multicomponent intervention designed to "prevent" the development of serious conduct problems in high-risk…

Purpose: Despite years of advice from researchers that trainee reactions provide training evaluation information that is of very limited use, trainee reactions remain the most commonly used measure of training effectiveness. Because the technology that supports online training facilitates the collection of trainee reaction information during and…

As a result of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2002, the field of education has seen a heavy emphasis on the use of "scientifically based research" for designing and testing the effectiveness of new and existing educational programs. According to NCLB, when addressing basic cause and effect questions scientifically based…